TSG4 - Game in Progress

leif erikson

Game of the Month Fanatic
Administrator
GOTM Staff
Supporter
Joined
Feb 2, 2003
Messages
29,802
Location
Plymouth, MA
Welcome to the TSG4 Game in Progress thread. This thread is used to discuss the game once you've started playing. There are no reading or posting restrictions as such (apart from normal decency), although we encourage players to use the spoiler tags for screenshots. Here you can post questions related to the game and share your achievements/anger/frustration/victories while you play. Please remember that we are running a family friendly site, so please express anger or frustration with this in mind. :)

Once you've completed the game, head over to the TSG4 After Action Report thread.
 
Pre-game thoughts

A Diplo victory in Civ5 is basically a science + gold race. Tech to globalization, build the UN, throw money at all the city states, win.

As far as I know, for any game that you expect to progress to the modern era the most effective choices (with this current patch) are basically ICS or mass puppets. I've been playing around with both approaches, and I think for this game I'll go with the puppet empire, mainly for two reasons:
1. Some policies (eg, the Patronage tree) are very useful for saving gold to bribe the city states. With the ICS strat, these extra policies are particularly costly.
2. In my experience I've found that a puppet empire generally produces more gold, though perhaps less science (assuming the puppets are working trading posts). Again, useful for bribing the city states.

As always, pre-game thoughts are generally meaningless once the game is underway.

4000 BC -> 3000 BC
Spoiler :
I move the warrior 2E, and see no compelling reason to move the settler, so I settle in place. With silk and gems nearby, early techs target mining and calendar. The resources can be sold to the AI for cash, which can be spent on who knows what. First builds are warrior -> Worker. Nearest CSs are militaristic, my least favourite.

My spearman (courtesy of ruins weapons upgrade) trespasses through Budapest lands to explore to the west, as I'd really like to meet an AI. In fact, in 3525 BC I meet the Mongol. Shortly after, the Chinese find me.

By 3000 BC, I notice that there's a lot of land on this continent, and maybe I do want to go the ICS route. May as well play with it before it gets nerfed.

Augustus doesn't like Wu, so I sign a pact of secrecy vs Wu. Not that I really care - I'm planning to eliminate all the AI from this continent. But at least I have an idea of who to start with.

Next techs are Animal Husbandry (yay, horses nearby!) -> Wheel -> Horseback Riding. Meanwhile I'm building warriors to take out Wu. She sees it happening and pretty much asks for me to declare, so I oblige her (at least I'm honest!). In 2225 BC I have my first puppet, for no losses. Genghis is next on the list.

2000 BC -> 10 AD
Spoiler :
It's a slow walk over to Mongolia, and it takes a while to get into position around Karakorum. Eventually I declare and capture his capital in 1500 BC. The fighting isn't so straight forward and I lose 3 warriors :(. Genghis gives me a city in exchange for peace, which is nice of him. Meanwhile, a second city is founded in the forest north of my own capital - this city will be set up for production.

I get a golden age around here. It's not really planned - I kind of have too much happiness because only Ceasar will buy my luxuries and he's a bit strapped for cash.

After the 10 turns of peace with Genghis, I attack again. This time it all goes swimmingly, and he is removed in 1125 BC. I'm tempted to leave Augustus so I have a trading partner.Time to think about the future. I have lots and lots of land, with a decent number of lux resources. Plan now is to tech to Acoustics ASAP and pick up at least the base policy of the freedom branch, then spam out cities. Tech path after that is toward Optics so I can meet some more city states (especially maritimes) and then Banking for the Forbidden Palace.

With a GS bulb I learn Acoustics in 170 BC. I take the base policy of Freedom. Given the lack of maritime city states around here, I'm not convinced going ICS is the best route just yet. So I'm delaying taking the Rationalism policy until I am more sure that I want to start spamming settlers, so that when I do I can do it during a golden age.

At 10 AD I have 2 cities that I have founded - both size 5. I have 3 puppets, sizes 5, 5 and 4. A bit of a disappointment really. Science is 33/turn, and Compass is still 15 turns away. On the positive side, I'm not far away from having 3 social policies saved up so I can take Rationalism, Secularism and Free Thought soon and start laying down cities. There must be at least one maritime CS out there...

10 AD -> 500 AD
Spoiler :
Finding the other AI and other city states has become a priority. So I'm teching toward Astronomy to give my exploring units access to the ocean and a little more speed. Finally in 160 AD I meet Ragusa on the island to the north. They're a hostile maritime CS, but beggars can't be choosers.

It actually takes another 330 years before I have enough culture to take Free Thought. I do so, and on the same turn put down 5 cities. This almost doubles my science output immediately. By 505 AD I am at 64 science/turn with 13 cities and climbing. I'm still 2 turns away from Astronomy, and I have a few embarked warriors poised to head into the ocean. I might also consider cash rushing a caravel. Next tech goals are Banking for the Forbidden Palace followed by Construction for Colloseums.

Augustus is still alive at present, I'll reassess what I do with him when I'm a bit more advanced in tech
 
Initial plan to make friends/allies with City States, and puppet nearby AI Civs.

Move Warrior 2E, and decide to settle in place.

Notes from first 100 turns...
Spoiler :
Civ V - TSG4 Notes - Session 1

T1 - move Warrior 2E to Hill; see nothing special so SIP; initial research = Animal Husbandry; initial build = Scout
T4/3900 BC - Warrior moves into Ancient Ruins, discover Animal Husbandry; researching Mining; no Horses to be seen
T6/3850 BC - Warrior dies in 2nd attack on Barb Camp
T10/3750 BC - Scout completed; building Warrior
T11/3725 BC - Scout discovers Mt Fuji NE of Capitol, also spots another ancient ruins
T12/3700 BC - ruins explored, receive 45 Culture from artifacts
T13/3675 BC - Scout meets CS of Geneva (Cultured) NE of Capitol, near Mt Fuji, receive 30 gold;adopt Tradition Policy
T15/3625 BC - Scout located Horse Resource 3W of Capitol!
IBT T15/16 - meet China, Wu will not do Pact of Coop; China's Scout came from North
T17/3575 BC - learned Mining; researching Trapping; Scout meets CS Budapest (Militaristic) West of Capitol, receive 15 gold
IBT T20/21 - meet Mongols, their Scout came from West
T21/3475 - Scouts finishes off Barb Camp to South of Capitol where initial Warrior died, receive 37 gold
IBT T24/25 - meet Rome, their Scout came from West
T25/3375 BC - Warrior built in Capitol, building Worker; Warrior garrisoned in Capitol
T26/3350 BC - Scout meets CS Hanoi (Militaristic) SE of Capitol, receive 30 gold; Capitol bombards Barb Brute, Warrior finished him off
T28/3300 BC - Warrior clears Barb Camp east of Capitol; Warrior promoted to Drill I
T33/3175 BC - learned Trapping, researching Archery
T42/2950 BC - learned Archery, researching Pottery
T48/2800 BC - Worker built; building Archer
T51/2725 BC - learned Pottery, researching Bronze Working
T55/2625 BC - adopt Liberty SP
T57/2575 BC - Scout meets CS Bucharest (Cultured) receive 15 gold
IBT T58/59 - Rome asks for Pact of Secret against Mongols, accepted
T63/2425 BC - Archer built in Capitol, building Settler
T64/2400 BC - learned Bronze Working, researching Writing
T67/2325 BC - Archer captures Barb Worker that belonged to Budapest; Worker returned = Budapest freinds; gift 500 gold to Budapest, they are now an ally!
T77/2075 BC - learned Writing, researching The Wheel; Settler built in Capitol, building Library; Archer kill Barb in Budapest Territory, promoted to Accuracy I
T79/2025 BC - Osininka founded ~4W of Capitol, on coast & just south of Horse & Sheep, building Spearman
T80/2000 BC - Scout meets CS Dublin (Militaristic) receive 15 gold
T81/1975 BC - Scout discoveres Old Faithful near Dublin
T82/1950 BC - receive Spearman from Budapest!
T83/1925 BC - Budapest requests a road from Capitol
T88/1800 BC - learned The Wheel, researching Calendar
T92/1700 BC - Spearman clears Barb Camp near Bucharest & Geneva per their request, now friends with both; gift 250 gold to Bucharest, they are now ally, get +4 Culture/turn & Whales
T93/1675 BC - Scout meets CS Seoul (Cultured) receive 15 gold
T94/1650 BC - Budapest gives Cotton, which starts "We Love King Day" in Capitol; Capitol finished Library, building Worker
T99/1525 BC - learned Calendar, researching Horseback Riding
T100/1500 BC - about to lose ally status with Budapest; stopping turn set
 
Am I allowed to post in this thread if I don't read other people's spoilers? My game is not over yet. Obviously wrote this in bits and pieces so it's not sticking too well to the timeline. But still. First 80 turns:

Spoiler :
3000 BC to 2000 BC

Fractal is always windy continents & often some smaller islands. My plan is to conquer my continent then ICS. To that end, I go Animal Husbandry, Wheel then Horseback riding. I prefer the speed of horses to the strength (and lateness) of the Mohawk. I plan to make scouts, find my local civs then declare war as soon as I get HBR. I also save gold so that I can buy both horses immediately.

I get a +1 pop hut on turn 5, and +30 culture on turn 15. Culture goes into faster settlers, rather than saving for Patronage or Science trees - I have a feeling that it's more important to take advantage of exponential growth than save money & get a couple of free techs later on.

As soon as first scout is built, I switch to settler to settle on the 2x horses. Turns out that I can't quite afford the 2nd horse, so I use the first to clear an encampment to buy the second two turns later.

These then attack China, who has already settled in my direction. I've also stolen a worker at about turn 40 and built two more - pop is 3 and 4 right now. The 3rd worker heads towards Shanghai to connect its spices as soon as possible. I won't have calendar in time as I went mining first, but I can make a farm while I wait.

By the time I've surrounded Beijing I realise there's almost certainly no Maritime food on this continent (presumably why we're playing this save?), so I decide to settle my 3rd on the coast and buy a trireme. I know there's an island to the North East as I've met Tyre, maybe there'll be more in that direction.

Therefore after Calendar I go Sailing. Inconveniently I have to wait 5 turns to settle my 3rd village as it'll turn me -10 otherwise. I also get my 2nd policy if I wait that long (I want faster workers then, one day, meritocracy). Stupidly realise I need to chop forest to connect spices & silk, so lose 2 turns making less useful farms while I was waiting for Calendar.

End of turn 80 (2000 BC) I'm +14 beakers, +22 gold, -5 happiness, 6/220 culture at +1, size 4, 3 & 1 cities and two puppets, Sailing in 1 turn, army fighting Mongols outside their three cities. Next turn I have the gold to buy 2x Triremes (to go north & south) and a workboat for the fishies.

I'm either going to have to get a culture CS ally or Oracle to get Meritocracy. I think I'll try the latter first. Therefore I'll go Writing/Philosophy next. Would quite like Great Library too, but probably better to delay that in favour of more cities & workers to plug in my puppeted luxuries. After Philosophy going to have to go Masonry to plug in Beijing's marble. Hopefully can kill Mongols without loss - two horsemen & a spear all with rough terrain skill, a scout with +1 sight nearby. Then maybe can damage Romans. Also got a spare scout sitting between my cities to help cover against barb spawns.

Longer term I am going to need banking as soon as possible. Hopefully won't need to waste time teching military to kill the Romans. Hopefully won't need Astronomy to find maritime food. I am going to need to save all my great scientists to beeline from as far out as possible. I am going to need a great engineer village. I am going to need a relatively high pop capital so that engineer gets me max shields. Not sure of formula for number of shields engineer gives you, but it's definitely related to pop. Perhaps 300 + 30*pop? UN is 1500 shields, so I'm going to need strong production there too. Therefore need to keep as many forest tiles there as possible. Presumably it's going to be awkward to balance wanting scientists and engineers, so will try to get machinery as soon as possible to get me started on him. If I can get him fairly early, I can spam great scientists. No idea how feasible that is. Need to remember to make GE village near a river or lake for Garden. Possibly need to golden age while building UN.
 
Next 40 turns:

Spoiler :
Find that Tyre is on a tiny island but that there's a bigger one above it, with ruins. Probably means it's a CS island with no AI, so I'll ultimately want to land a scout there. Hopefully some maritime food there.

Just about capture mongol capital. Each of my 3 units mostly dead, but he has no army to hurt me while I heal. Capture one of his workers meanwhile. Pop a general on turn 89. Save him for 10 turns to golden age during oracle building.

Find Ragusa (maritime) on turn 90, trade spices to Rome for 300 gold and declare war so that I can afford the 500 gift. Can ally in another 3 turns. For some reason, Shanghai has stopped building anything, so I'll raise it and settle nearby to ensure I retain spices.

Start golden age as soon as Philosophy is ready (turn 98). Oracle takes 17 turns while in GA. I really don't want to chop in Onondaga, but guess I should've saved the silk forest's 20 shields for this. Mongol dead by this stage, as was my scout on that side of the map. Moving towards Rome at the moment.

Annex Karakorum to buy & mine the gold tile & to build more workers in the area. Realise I've been spending forever bombarding barbarians instead of exploring. Also realise that Astronomy takes 35 turns at this rate. May need to waste a GS on it. For which, I'll need a library in my Horse city, which is still 5 turns from circus.

Meritocracy turn 115. Lose a horseman attacking the last roman city (spearman), but think I'll be OK with final horseman & his stored upgrade.

Turn 120: +37 beakers, +42 gold, -1 happiness (32/750), +8 culture (181/345), 6 villages and 5 puppets. Plan is to finish Theology, get Compass, get Education then GS to Astronomy. Capitalising techs is annoying. Then metal casting to start GE village, then banking for forbidden palace. Probably going to need construction somewhere along the way. Otherwise, expand to pearls, get to -9 happiness and wait for colloseums to ICS some more.


Then 1000 BC to 10 AD:

Spoiler :
1000BC to 10 AD

Didn't do much. Bought a corsair. Found other continent. Allied 3x maritime CS. Went freedom to allow more happiness micro - am getting more policies than I expected due to puppets making monuments. Probably would've been more sensible to save for patronage or science policies but ah well.

Currently on chivalry, then can go banking. One GS saved up - not sure I need anything until globalisation now. GE city has started just north of my capital, with garden building. Also going for production in capital. Am in a nasty happiness crunch where I need to constantly micro to avoid getting to -10. Colloseums don't finish for another 5-35 turns. I think I'll let CS lapse to friends so that I can buy another colloseum or two. Then I can do more settler spam and hopefully get some time in on forbidden palace. 30 XP away from next great general so will pull corsairs off exploration and get them bombarding barbarians so I can golden age the palace.

Turn 174: +108 beakers, +125 gold, -9 happiness, 724/965 culture at +28, 4 maritime allies. 11 villages, 7 puppets.


10 AD to 505 AD:
Spoiler :
All I did was build stuff. Had to buy a trireme so that I could get the final 2 XP to get great general to golden age to start the forbidden palace. As of turn 207 (505 AD), I am 18 turns from finishing it. Currently 3 turns from Archaeology, 19 techs from Globalisation. Only one GS. Every library has 2 specialists in due to happiness bonus. Half my cities are limited to 4 pop until the palace.

Turn 207: +202 beakers, +246 gold, -2 happiness, 683/2700 culture at +28 (I took Rationalism's golden age, probably should've gone Patronage - had no plan for policies obviously). 4 Maritime allies. 22 villages, 7 puppets. 3 settlers in production, 3 walking to their spots.

I'm vaguely hoping to beat 300 turns but it isn't looking too likely right now.

 
Looks like a really great start NoImagination - beating my empire in every respect and much further ahead in tech.

Good luck with cracking T300 :goodjob:
 
505 AD to 1000 AD:

Spoiler :
All I did was ICS, limit cities to 4, focus them on production and make colloseums, libraries then universities. 980 AD was an annoying turn. I gift a city state 500 to stop France killing them only to realise they're on perma war with them. Also got beaten to chicken itza by 10 turns - I wanted the GE points. I should've prioritised Economics & Steam Power so that I could get more GE points.

Turn 245: +359 beakers (one turn from economics, this is microed beaker count), +438 gold, -1 happiness, 2021/4145 culture. 35 villages plus 7 puppets. 10 techs from globalisation.

Still only one GS. No GE.


1000 AD to end:

Spoiler :
I had to defend a Maritime CS with my destroyers. I had no chance of getting a great engineer on time. I think the way to do this is to beeline for economics/factory as I mentioned earlier. I was only about 100 great people points from getting one in time.

Ended up with 3 great scientists in time (two shortly after). Was able to time a happiness golden age for start of UN building - 13 turns to make. A GE would've cut ten turns from my time.

Got up to +66 happiness at one point so let my pop grow incase it comes down to score.

Technically had space for 2 more villages on my continent and 4-5 more on the CS continent, but too lazy by this stage. I was deleting workers instead of building railroads. All my villages are set to wealth. Spent spare gold at the end on battleships and stuff, just so I could be #1 in all the demographic categories, except of course for approval rating.

Won turn 308: +1311 beakers, +756 gold, 3 happiness, +155 culture, 47 villages & 7 puppets.
 
Let's see how it goes. I believe I had a really great start but my turn 109-200 have gone really really bad. Plus, when I red some of your topic, I just don't get how people get 200 beaker by turn 200. I'll have to work it out

Came to think about it, Diplomatic victory is mostly saving a huge chunk of cash and buying all city-state at last minute. Wouldn't it be better if CS vote for the civilisation that they were ally too for the most time in the game. For now, it might prove easier because AI do not ally CS. But I just feel like getting vote from CS I never bother about until 2 turns before vote kinda... feel not right. Well, that's how bribery and corruption work I suppose.

Classical age
Spoiler :
Building order was warrior-warrior- Settler
I conquer China with 4 warriors in between turn 30-40. Got lucky on that one. I was positioning to attack and she deserted the surronding area of her countryside to attack a barbarian encampment. Budapest and Bucharest gave me a simple mission to kill the same barb encampment which I gladly did, securing enough hapiness and culture for the time being.

For my social policy, il did wait to fill piety. First time I try that tactic. Allow me 2 early golden age, a couple of SP, and then switch to Rationalism once I have my puppet-empire. I'm not there yet thou


Turn 109-180
Spoiler :
That turn was when all start to go wrong. First, I lost the Oracle race by 4 turns. Then, my city placement wasn't so good and I had to buy for 400$ of tile to get to the 2 horses tiles. I was delaying the attacks way to much. I took Hanoi, 2 Mongolian city and he offer me peace for Beshbalik. Took it 'cause I only had one horseman and I was ready to upgrade to knight. I hope these 10 turns of peace are gonna be enough for building up my army. I must take over the continent before finding any of the other civilisation out there.


Find Ragusa a little before turn 180, automatically paid for it.

Socially, I put 2 policy in patronage. While I'm waiting 1 more SP to get to the Renaissance era
 
doing good here - turn 150 (about) and 170 bakkers per turn (varies betweens 120 and 190 via mirco)
Spoiler :
- starting to conquest China and maybe afterwards rome to get some more lux - just having 1 problem - I need 1 more sp and I calculate to get it just at the turn i expect to have finished my teching (turn 250 is my target turn),


can some1 more experienced tell me how to get more then 4sp+oracle? - the costs increase WAY too much afterwards - maybe if I limit myself to like 5 cities untill I got all the wanted sp another game - I mgiht try- but I really d hate to be limited that much - and with the new patch it wont work anymore anyway

Spoiler :
I even got 2+1(later) cult cs - but doensnt help Moderator Action: deleted
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889


Spoiler :
btw the map Moderator Action: deleted
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889 - I had 4 scout moving all around world for like 100 turns just to finaly found out there it was all useless .... this map makes game a even bigger race to Astro then it is usally as goign into ren is huge anyway


Moderator Action: Warning: I've deleted your expletives. Swearing is not permitted in this family-friendly environment
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889
 
Thoughts

Spoiler :

Early on I had the good luck to find the Chinese to the North and chokepoint them off with an early settler (bought the worker instead using city state and ruin gold).

Tried to settle the Gold to the southwest for minting purposes.

Rome and Genghis came after me jointly after I got pretty big and the continent filled up.

The map is built with fantastic natural choke points to the West, North and Southwest that make defense trivial.

The real money machine may be the City-State laden Tundra continent to the Northwest. A lot of coastal cities with the right improvements might clean up on gold up there.

That's where I intend to grow next.
 
Top Bottom